Assessment

Employee assessment

Assessment is a process in which a group of people (job candidates, managers, or others) is given several group tasks and exercises, and a team of experts evaluates them based on pre-determined characteristics. The focus of the assessment is on the frequency of certain behaviors that indicate the level of development of specific competencies, which have been identified with the client as crucial for a particular job. Although they are called simulations, the tasks and exercises do not necessarily have to be simulations of real business tasks but mainly represent metaphors for business tasks and processes. In this way, individual characteristics and response patterns are assessed, as well as team behavior.

What can we assess?

At the team level:

  • Team strengths

  • Relationships among team members, acceptance of individual members

  • Team atmosphere, closeness among members, and readiness for team bonding

  • Acceptance of individual members

  • Communication within the team

  • Designing and selecting group task-solving strategies

  • Identification of specific difficulties (problematic member, etc.)

  • Adherence to rules

  • Motivation for achieving the common goal

  • Taking and distributing specific roles within the team (leader, collaborator, critic, etc.) and cooperation

  • Team members’ reactions to an individual’s mistake

  • Team behavior in a relaxed, informal atmosphere

  • Whether the team is open to learning or sabotages the process

At the individual level:

  • Ability to withstand stress and frustration; reacting in such situations
  • Tendency to take on specific roles within the team (leader role, collaborator role, critic role, etc.)
  • Reasoning, problem-solving, and decision-making
  • Motivation and ambition
  • Relationships with people; orientation towards teamwork or independent work
  • Social skills and tactfulness in communication
  • Adaptability and flexibility (willingness to change or accept others’ strategies)
  • Planning and organizing
  • Communication
  • Initiative and proactivity
  • Positive attitude
  • Task orientation or people orientation
  • Self-control, discipline, and persistence
  • Self-confidence
  • Sensitivity (to criticism, to difficult situations)
  • Creativity
  • Coping with failure

 

Why/When to conduct an Assessment?

  • When you want additional information in the selection of candidates for an open position*

  • When you want additional information when choosing a person to be promoted to a vacant position*

  • When you want additional information for the purpose of assessing educational needs*

  • When you want to identify employees expected to undergo accelerated development (acceleration pool)*

  • When you want additional information on the functioning of a (newly formed) team**

 

*Assessment is often conducted along with extensive psychological testing and interviews (evaluation)
**Assessment can also be conducted as a Team Building exercise, where reflection on individual and group performance is done after each task/exercise, and short workshops related to the task/exercise content on the topic of successful teams are conducted between exercises

What does the company gain from such an assessment?

  • Understanding which potentials of the assessed candidates/employees have come to the fore

  • Recommendations for which positions might suit individual candidates/employees

  • Positive changes encouraged through employee self-reflection

What does the assessed employee gain from such an assessment?

  • Understanding which of their potentials come to the fore in teamwork

  • Understanding which behaviors they should exhibit more or less frequently

  • Insight into the functioning of the team as a whole – advantages and potential shortcomings

  • Simulated processes are often very enjoyable